


ALL HEADS TURN WHEN THE HUNT GOES BY

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark SG-1, Doctor Darkside, Other, Rape/Non-con References, S9, Violence Is Good For You
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Nights aren't quite what they used to be when General O'Neill was in charge.</p>
<p>Cameron Mitchell finds out just what happens when you've been SG-1 for a very long time.  AU.  Set probably somewhere vaguely in late S9.  Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ALL HEADS TURN WHEN THE HUNT GOES BY

On March 17, 2005, Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell was posted to the SGC. It was the 11th anniversary, exactly, of the date of the first Abydos Mission.

Eighteen months later he and his team are all up to their asses in alien circuit preachers out to destroy the Galaxy. He does his best not to think of it as Jackson's fault (and really, it wasn't, sort of), the interstellar Mafia is running rampant, Jaffa independence has been kind of a pain in the ass and is now a dead issue (due to the alien circuit preachers who are wiping out or rolling over the Jaffa, depending on how much of a spine whichever Jaffa world in question had managed to grow since the destruction of the _Goa'uld_ ), he knows more about King Arthur than Cousin Mary Catherine would ever have suspected possible, he knows that the mother of the Orici likes Szechwan Chinese (especially the Spicy Beef), and SG-1 is getting its collective butt kicked on a regular basis.

SG-1 is still cool, though. The Legendary SG-1, and if he isn't exactly leading them (him and Sam? Same rank, and since the SGC has MAJCOM status, the Powers That Be are trying out a new wrinkle and giving him and her joint command, with the person calling the shots depending on the particular mission specialty. It works, pretty much, because he's known Sam for years -- she'd been lecturing at the Academy when he'd gone through -- and it had been the shock of his life to see her in a cockpit a few years later in Iraq) he's still _here._ With them.

It's strange, though. He hasn't seen much of Sam since her tour, and he's only done a couple of meet'n'greets with the others, mostly during his F-302 training. Back then, Teal'c had been determined to scare hell out of all the pilot cadre, Jackson had wanted to tell them the _whole history_ of the original _Goa'uld_ designs, and Colonel (then) O'Neill had spent hours cramming them all with practical information on how the new craft worked.

Later, in the Secured Wing of the Academy Hospital, he'd gotten plenty of time to read their mission reports. A personal favor to him from General O'Neill. To the only survivor of the F-302 program. The mission that had saved SG-1's lives, and those of everyone on Earth. Reading those reports had convinced him that there was one thing in the world that he wanted more than to be in the cockpit of an F-302.

SG-1.

And he gets it, because the prize for being a live hero is whatever assignment he asks for. And by the time he gets to The Mountain they've all left, or are planning to, but he gets them back together. Sam and Jackson and Teal'c, and Jackson's new alien girlfriend just for good measure. Vala's cute and she's smart and he thinks her intentions are good (most of the time) but he's not one hundred percent convinced that she's completely figured out Earth Rules yet.

And even though he's got SG-1 back, it isn't quite what he thought it was going to be. _They_ aren't quite what he thought they were going to be.

Who he thought they'd be.

#

Daniel stands under the water in the shower of the locker room, thinking of nothing. Rough day. Rough week. All the days, and weeks, and months, are rough now, blending into years, going back as far as he can -- or wants to -- remember.

He needs a vacation.

But there aren't any vacations in his life any more -- not that there ever really were, but now he fantasizes about a vacation the way he used to fantasize about coffee. Or chocolate. Or getting back through the Gate alive. At least he can have the next best thing. A little breathing space.

He sees Mitchell coming in as he's going out; face-time with the General, or paperwork; and Mitchell asks him if he's got plans. Daniel says that he doesn't; that he's going home, going to bed.

But he doesn't.

#

The bar is crowded and noisy, and he wishes Colorado Springs would pass a 'no smoking' ordinance in bars, but it probably won't. He hasn't been here before and he won't come here again; not until he has to, and that should be a year, maybe even two. The clothes he's wearing are new, too; bought for the occasion. Not at all his usual style.

He picks her out quickly; she's pretty, blonde, vivid. In her mid-twenties. Out with a group of girlfriends. It isn't long until she's sitting with him at a booth in the back. She tells him her name is Amber (their names always seem to be Amber. Or Rachel or Stephanie or Nichole or Jennifer.) He tells her his name is Alex. A few minutes later they leave together.

The next day Mitchell tells him he looks really well-rested, and Daniel just smiles.

#

"How would you know if somebody wasn't right?"

"About what?" Cameron asks.

"Right. _In the head."_ Vala's voice drops to a stage-whisper, and she looks around the Commissary in a way guaranteed to draw everyone's attention.

Sometimes Cam wonders if she's telling the truth about having been a highly-successful con artist and interstellar smuggler. Maybe she lulled her victims into a false sense of security by acting like an idiot. Or maybe having been a host scrambled her brains. Considering that the person asking him this question is wearing pigtails secured with rhinestone _Hello Kitty_ barrettes and has a purple silk flower pinned to the collar of her uniform jacket, Cameron isn't sure he could explain the whole concept of "not right" to her in Earth terms. "Well, that depends," he says.

"I'm pretty sure Daniel isn't right," she says.

Cameron sighs. "What? He stole his credit card back again? Look, I told you: we'll get you one of your own, but it's gonna take a while. Meanwhile, you're just going to have to pay cash for things." Because nobody with any sense is going to give Vala a checkbook and show her how to use it. General Landry's forbearance stops at grand larceny. And even a credit card is probably pushing it.

"No!" Vala says. "He ... goes places."

"Sure," Cameron says. "And he doesn't take you. Well maybe he'll take you next time." Vala follows Jackson around like a puppy. A puppy that shops at Victoria's Secret.

"But I don't want to go!" She's leaning so far forward now that she's got her arm in his mashed potatoes. They're awful mashed potatoes, but they were supposed to be his lunch. 

"Then what are we talking about?" he asks.

Suddenly she realizes where her wrist is and recoils, dripping potatoes and gravy all over the table. "Never mind," she says. She gets to her feet, leans over to grab his napkin out of his lap, and uses it to wipe her arm before stalking out.

"We've got a mission this afternoon!" he calls after her.

She ignores him.

#

It's Friday night, and Sam's going out to a bar. She deserves a little fun; and she knows Daniel's had his. She saw him Wednesday morning. He always has a special glow after a night out.

Saturday nights are really better -- everybody wants to raise a little hell Saturday nights -- but she's promised to take Teal'c out tomorrow -- he doesn't have a car -- and wait up for him. God knows Cam can't do it. Team Nights aren't quite what they used to be when General O'Neill was in charge.

She sees Daniel at the elevator on her way out. "Have fun," he says, and smiles.

#

The bar is a nasty, dirty, smoky sort of place; loud and noisy and at the edge of town. A honky-tonk if you're being polite. A shit-kicker bar if you aren't. The opposite side of town from the military bars; a good thing she bought the General's old truck (she told him she needed it to haul her bikes around, and she does) because it fits right in here and she'd hate to risk her Volvo in the parking lot. Normally she'd just ride her Indian, but she doesn't dare leave her leathers on the back in a place like this and it will defeat the whole purpose if she wears them inside.

She gets a long-neck at the bar, takes a table, and waits. It doesn't take long before some half-drunk cowboy comes along and offers to keep her company.

Sam plays fair. She always plays fair. She tells him to go away. And sometimes they do. But there's always one who says _aw little lady, you don't mean that_ and follows it up with some variation on _pretty little thing like you, here all by yourself, you've just_ gotta _be lonely._ And she keeps saying 'no,' but never being quite convincing about it, and about five minutes later he's offering to show her his truck or his bike or the horse he rode in on.

It never takes very long after that. He puts his hand on her -- she always waits for that, always -- and then she's up, on her feet -- _heel to instep_ \-- and smiling brightly at him -- _elbow to jaw as he staggers back_ \-- and if she's lucky he'll start to fight back then, and if she's _really_ lucky he'll have a buddy who'll move in to help when he hears the sound of breaking bones and the pitiful little whimper the assholes always give when you break their elbow or dislocate their shoulder. Then she can finish up the first one quickly -- _heelpalm to the larynx_ \-- and take a little time with the second one. One loverboy or two, though, she's out of the bar and back in the truck within ten minutes, leaving her victims writhing and puking on the floor.

She drives home with the windows rolled down, singing along with the radio, beating time to the songs against the steering wheel. Her hands are never sore at all until the next day.

#

He has spent many years upon the battlefield, and few of those years and battles were fought among the Tau'ri. Teal'c of the Morning Cham'ka Groves has seen all the ways that war can distort a human soul, for some of the enemies his once-master set him against were human. Fragile, undisciplined, and short-lived; the Jaffa had mocked their excesses and their failures -- for no human could stand against the power of Apophis.

Until, of course, one human had, and Teal'c's life was changed forever.

Living among humans, he learned their strengths -- and the weaknesses of his own people in full and bitter measure -- but even as they slew those who had once named themselves gods and humbled an empire that had endured ten times longer than their own history, Teal'c did not lose sight of the frailties of the Tau'ri and the invisible scars of war.

They are scars, he thinks, that Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson carry in abundance. They are changed from what they once were, the man and woman he knew when he first set his foot upon the path of the destruction of the False Gods. And they have walked every step of that path with him, forgiving him his apostasies, championing his causes. That alone would not be enough cause to keep him silent about what he suspects -- if only to warn them who he loves -- but once again they have been called to a battlefield, and it is a battlefield more terrible still than any the _Goa'uld_ had ever thought to craft. And so Teal'c keeps his silence.

This time last year he made an attempt to live among the Tau'ri as one of them. The attempt had been a failure, but even before it had been exploited by their enemies, he had seen that even after so many years living upon their planet he is still alien in all senses of the word. Their ways are not his. Still, they fascinate him, and it is as much out of that fascination as from some desire to provide ... balance ... that he asks Colonel Carter to provide him transport to the center of the city every few weeks. Should anyone ask where they are going, it is to attend a movie. Both Teal'c and Colonel Carter are fond of movies.

He walks for miles through the night-dark streets. When justice is required, he administers it. No one sees (not like before.) No one interferes. Teal'c is careful. The victims of his foes cannot identify him.

His foes will lodge no complaints with the authorities, because they are no longer alive.

At the end of the night, Teal'c calls Colonel Carter again, and she drives him back to The Mountain. She does not ask how he has spent his evenings, any more than Teal'c asks her how she spends hers.

Any more than he asks Daniel Jackson how he spends his.

#

Cam was actually starting to get used to a unit composed of a kleptomaniac with poor impulse control, an obsessive-compulsive with poor work habits, a manic-depressive with ADD, and a monosyllabic paranoid with anger-management issues (and who those definitions applied to depended on the fucking _day_ ), because it really didn't matter how weird your teammates were, so long as you were a _team._ The thing that was starting to get on Cam's last nerve, though, was Vala's constant insistence that there was 'something wrong' with Jackson. Hell, the man's been dead so many times by now he probably gets Frequent Flyer miles, and he'd been just about the first guy through the Stargate, back before there'd even been a Stargate Command. Cam figures the guy's entitled to a few quirks after all this time, and if Vala can't come up with anything more concrete than 'something wrong,' well, Cam doesn't have much patience for her constant hinting around. But that doesn't mean he doesn't know that things like that are the things that can tear a unit apart, especially a small unit out on the sharp end, which is just about the _definition_ of SG-1.

That was why he went to Jackson one day and laid it all out for him and told him he had to _fix it_ and Cam really didn't care how. Jackson's vouch had gotten Vala onto the team in the first place, so Cam figured any Vala-problems were Jackson's problems too.

And Jackson smiled a bright sunny smile at Cam and promised him he'd take care of it.

#

So Cam is pretty happy to hear that Jackson's asked Vala out that Friday night on an honest-to-God _dinner date_ and if it probably isn't exactly a date, it's definitely dinner and a night out. For some reason Vala doesn't seem to be quite as happy about it. Cam hears about the date Thursday as he and Jackson are on the elevator heading out. Vala comes down to his office Friday morning.

"I don't want to go, Mitchell," she says mournfully.

Her hair's in pigtails today -- tied with pink ribbons -- and she's wearing perfume -- Carnation, he thinks -- and sitting on the edge of his desk. "So don't," he says. Vala's pretty much made a career out of not doing things she doesn't want to do.

"You don't understand!" she wails. "I hear things," she adds, leaning over toward him, and now her voice has dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

Cam sighs. He guesses it's Vala's week to be the paranoid one. "Yeah, right," he says. "You hear things about Jackson. So after chasing him around for _months_ like something my Momma would _smack_ me for mentioning out loud, he finally shows a spark of interest, and you don't want anything to do with him."

"He isn't right," Vala says, and Cam has it figured out now. The crazy woman wants company in Crazytown.

"Yeah," he says, sighing. "Jackson isn't right, Sam isn't right, Teal'c isn't right, I'm not right, and there's sure as _hell_ nothing right about the Ori. So tell him you don't want to go."

"Oh, but I can't do that, Mitchell. He'll keep asking me. Or he won't."

And she sounds as if she's making perfect sense. Cam pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. "Vala, do I need to be drunk to have this conversation? Could you at least give me a _hint?_ "

"He never goes on a second date, you know," Vala says solemnly. Then she slides down off the desk and -- to his surprise -- kisses Cam on the cheek. "But it isn't my first, oh, what do you say? _'Barbie-queue'_? Maybe I'll be the one who comes back."

And that doesn't make a lot of sense to Cam, because Jackson doesn't date at all, but Vala's gone and his in-box isn't, so he puts it out of his mind.

#

Jackson has to go home that evening and change up into fancy restaurant duds, and when he comes back, he even brings Vala flowers. (Yeah, Cam hangs around after end-of-shift just to see all that. The sight of Vala in a party dress doesn't hurt either.) No matter how much she was carrying on in his office this morning, she smiles at Jackson like she's waited her whole life to paint the town red with him, and he smiles back at her, and off they go.

And Cam goes on home, figuring that _now_ , at least, Vala'll stop acting like Jackson's out to kill her. Only once he's home, in the aloneness and the silence, he can't make that dog hunt. Vala's a former _host_ , for God's sweet sake. No matter how few marbles she's got left, Cam's never actually seen her _scared_ of anything that didn't involve, oh, immediate death at the hands of the Ori.

_"How would you know if somebody wasn't right?"_

He never knew Jackson before he got here. But for damned sure Sam isn't the kind of person you'd leave an apple on the desk for Teacher for these days. And sometimes she shows up of a Monday morning a little more scuffed-up than a weekend in her lab or a weekend curled up in front of the television could account for.

_"He never goes on a second date, you know. Maybe I'll be the one who comes back."_

Cam puts up with the still small voice of conscience for about as long as he can bear to, then gets out of his sweats and into something fit to be seen in public in. He starts by calling Jackson's cellphone, but it's turned off (no surprises there.) So he drives to the restaurant Jackson was taking Vala to, hating himself all the way. He doesn't even know what he's worrying about. By the time he shows up there and flashes his ID at the manager, all he finds out is that he missed the two of them by about half an hour. Jackson still isn't answering his damned phone, and Vala doesn't have one.

And they aren't at Jackson's apartment (Cam's next stop, and a long shot) so after that he's pretty much out of ideas. Maybe Sam will have some, if she's still up.

She's the 'early-to-bed' type when she isn't pulling an all-nighter, as Cam recalls, but her lights are on when he drives by her house, so he parks and knocks on the door. She opens it quickly, and then blinks at him for a moment, as if he weren't the late-evening caller she was expecting.

"Mind if I come in?" Cam asks.

Sam smiles at him, bright and sharp. "Oh, not at all. Come on in. I was just finishing up a few things. What can I do for you, Cam?"

And he comes on in to her kitchen, and the coffee's already made, and he sits down at her kitchen counter and tries to come up with the words that will let him explain what he's doing here without making him sound like the Overprotective Dad out of an oldtime sitcom. Sam really doesn't seem to care why he's here; she talks about work, and about how the two of them ought to go for a run on her bikes while the weather's still good, and asks him if he had dinner, and warms him up some tuna casserole. And about ninety minutes after Cam's showed up, there's a _thump_ at the kitchen door.

Sam bites off her sentence right in the middle and whips over to the door. Opens it without even checking and catches Jackson as he falls through it. His jacket and tie are gone, and so are his glasses. His face is bloody -- split lip, gash over one eye, bloody nose -- and he's cradling his right wrist.

"Oh, my god! Daniel! You're a mess!" Sam says in alarm. She gets him inside and he leans against the wall while she closes the door and locks it up again, and there's a beat of _wrong_ in that that Cam can't quite put his finger on because he's too busy worrying about the fact that Jackson's here and Vala isn't anywhere in sight.

"Where's Vala?" he says, getting up. Both of them ignore him.

Sam leads Jackson over to a chair in the corner of the kitchen. "Ow," he says meditatively as she eases him into it. "I think it's broken." He sounds more irritated than anything else.

"Let me get my first aid kit," Sam says briskly. "Cam, get Daniel a cup of coffee, would you?"

Cam walks slowly over to the pot. As he passes Jackson, he smells blood. There's not that much on his shirt (but more than there _ought_ to be, given his injuries), but his pants are soaked. "Where's Vala?" he says again, more urgently.

"Don't bother with milk and sugar; I'll just take it black," Jackson says. "All I'm going to be able to taste is blood, anyway, but it's freezing out there."

Cam really wants to ask Jackson _where the fuck_ Vala is, because somehow he doesn't think he drove her up to The Mountain in this condition (and where did all that blood come from?) but just then Sam shows up in the kitchen with her kit, snapping orders at him and demanding to know where the coffee is, and for the next few minutes, as Sam fusses over Jackson, getting him cleaned up and his wrist splinted, Cam's too busy to ask several important questions. Like why they aren't just taking Jackson to the nearest hospital. Like why they aren't out looking for Vala. Like why Sam isn't _asking_ Jackson where Vala is -- or at least asking why he showed up at her back door at almost midnight covered in blood and looking like something the cat wouldn't bother to drag in.

His Momma always used to say that God watched over children and fools, because at least it means he keeps his mouth shut up till the point where Sam says: "You're going to have to slip in the shower tomorrow morning, you know," and Jackson gives a kind of rueful half-laugh and answers: "Yeah. I think she broke my wrist."

_Oh, Vala. You weren't the one who came back after all, were you?_

He stands there in the middle of the kitchen, and the light is as bright and cold as if he's standing inside of a refrigerator, and he watches Sam fuss over Jackson, telling him those clothes are a lost cause, watching Jackson smile fondly at her, and he thinks about all the things Vala tried to tell him for so long, and he wonders if it would have made a difference if he'd listened. He was the one who told Jackson to _fix the problem._ And Jackson did. Had Vala been on Jackson's list of future girlfriends anyway? Was that why she'd been so worried in the first place? Because she'd known?

He wonders just how long Jackson's been going out on these 'dates' of his with girls Cam's never met and now never will. And he feels sick, wondering how many more of them there are going to be, because right now Jackson's got a faintly pissy look, like he's managed to not quite get something right, so he's going to have to take another swing at it later, and Cam knows he'll cover for Jackson any way he has to. He made that decision before he even met the man, on the day when he said: _'Give me a 302 to fly.'_ He's been repeating it over and over ever since, and it's never been truer than now: Jackson might have brought the Ori here, but he's also the man with the best chance of getting rid of them.

People die in war, and other people learn to live with it.

He clears his throat awkwardly, and both of them turn to look at him. "Is there, ah, anything I can do to help?" he asks.

And Jackson stops looking pissy and smiles at him (bright and sunny, and Cam thinks that even sunshine can be cold when it shines on ice.) There's still blood at the corner of his mouth, and Cam does not _does not_ want to know how it got there. "Sure," he says. "If you could get a zat out of the armory it'd be a real help. You could just swing by here and drop it off and then head on home."

"Yeah," Cam says, and if his voice sounds hoarser than it should, he knows neither of the others is going to call him on it. "I should be able to get it back here in about ninety minutes. Bring back your spare clothes from your locker while I'm at it?"

And Jackson smiles again, at Sam this time, before looking back at Cam. "That'd be great, Mitchell. Oh, and Mitchell?"

Cam's on his way toward the front door; he stops.

"Welcome to Stargate Command, Colonel Mitchell," Jackson says. There's laughter bubbling beneath the surface of his voice, and Cam thinks about snow and whiteness and slowly freezing to death.

###

**Author's Note:**

> Once Upon A Time there was something called the DarkGate Ficathon, which was... pretty much supposed to involve writing Dark SG-1 stories. So okay, I very rarely participate in ficathons because deadlines make me very very nervous, but I liked the idea of writing something superdark about SG-1. So I wrote this. In which everyone is very slightly Not Well: Teal'c is Batman, Sam is The Huntress, Daniel is a law unto himself, and Cam thinks he may be in the wrong movie...


End file.
